The History Book

260

MY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO

LEARN THE PRINCIPLES OF

DEMOCRACY THE DICTATES

OF TRUTH AND THE

TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE

THE YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION (1908)

T

he Young Turk Revolution

of July 1908 was instigated

by nationalistic army

officers dismayed by the territorial

losses of the Ottoman Empire. It

forced the sultan—the Ottoman

ruler, the ineffective but repressive

Abdul Hamid II—to reintroduce

the constitutional monarchy that he

had suspended in 1878 in favor

of personal rule after only two

years. In 1909, he was forced to

abdicate in favor of his brother,

Mehmed V, who was merely

a figurehead.

The revolution did very little

to halt the Ottoman decline,

tending mostly only to highlight

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Modernizing Turkey

BEFORE

1798 French invasion of Egypt,

which leads to the Ottoman

loss of the country in 1805.

1830 Greece’s independence

signals the loss of the first

Ottoman Balkan territories.

France begins its conquest

of Algeria.

AFTER

1912–13 Ottoman Turkey

suffers humiliating defeats

in the Balkan Wars.

1914 Ottoman Turkey enters

World War I on Germany’s side.

1920 Mustafa Kemal leads

a revolt against the punitive

Treaty of Sèvres imposed on

the Ottoman government after

defeat in World War I.

1923 The Treaty of Lausanne

confirms the borders of modern

Turkey; Kemal launches a

modernization program.

Ottoman Turkey finds

itself increasingly unable

to keep control of its

empire and match

Western powers.

Defeat in World War I

shatters the Ottoman

Empire but leads to

the formation of a

secular republic.

The Ottoman sultanate

attempts Westernizing

reforms, but these efforts

are half-hearted.

The Young Turk

Revolution

instigates

modernizing

reforms. It is

unable to offer any

lasting solution

to Turkey’s

declining power.

The rule of Abdul Hamid

II proves repressive and

corrupt, ever more at

the mercy of Western

financial interests.

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261

The Ottoman Empire became known

as “the sick man of Europe” in the late

19th century, due to its inability to hold

on to its lands. A defeat in World War I

led to even more territorial losses.

See also: Stephenson’s Rocket enters service 220–25 ■ The 1848 revolutions 228–29 ■ The construction of the

Suez Canal 230–35 ■ The Expedition of the Thousand 238–41

CHANGING SOCIETIES

tensions between those who

championed Turkish Islamic values

and those liberals who believed

only Western-style reforms could

s av e Tu r ke y.

Territorial decline

In 1800, despite repeated defeats

at the hands of the Russians,

Ottoman Turkey still ruled over

a vast multinational empire that

stretched across the Balkans, the

Middle East, and North Africa.

From 1805, it lost control of

Egypt, which became effectively

independent under one of the

sultan’s generals, Muhammad Ali.

In 1830, the year that France

began its conquest of Algeria

(completed in 1857), Greece won

its independence; and by 1878,

Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria,

and Romania were similarly

independent in all but name.

In 1881, Tunisia, too, was taken

over by France.

Following the Young Turk

Revolution, the relentless decline

of Ottoman Turkey continued. In

1911, Libya was lost to Italy, while

the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 saw the

surrender of almost all of Turkey’s

remaining European territories.

A fateful alliance

Following the Balkan crisis, the

Ottomans’ military government

launched a drive to modernize

the country along Western lines.

In October 1914, Turkey entered

World War I as an ally of the

Central Powers—Germany and

Austria-Hungary—convinced that

German military aid would allow

it to reassert its potency. This

was a calamitous mistake, and

defeat in 1918 saw Turkey reduced

to its Anatolian heartlands, its

remaining Middle East territories

lost, largely carved up between

Britain and France.

The traumas of Turkey’s defeat

in World War I were underlined in

1920 by the Treaty of Sèvres, largely

a Franco-British imposition. This

confirmed the loss of Ottoman

territory and also awarded much

of western Turkey to Greece,

provoking an immediate nationalist

backlash led by Mustafa Kemal,

as well as the overthrow of the

last sultan, Mehmed VI.

The Turkey that emerged under

Kemal, subsequently styled Atatürk

(“Father of the Turks”), was exactly

the centralized Western-style and,

importantly, secular state that

nationalist reformers such as the

Young Turks had argued for. ■

Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal, better known^

as Atatürk (1881–1938), the name

he assumed in 1934, was the

founder and first president of the

republic of Turkey. Born in 1881,

he took part in the Young Turk

Revolution as an army officer.

Later, he served with distinction

in the Gallipoli campaign of

1915–16, which repulsed a joint

Franco-British attempt to conquer

western Turkey.

After the Turkish defeat in

World War I, Atatürk established

a provisional government. As

leader of the Turkish Nationalists,

he played a central role in driving

the Greeks from mainland

western Turkey. With the

country’s borders confirmed

by the Treaty of Lausanne of

1923, the West effectively

agreeing to the establishment of

a new Turkish republic, Atatürk

launched a radical program of

social and political reforms

intended to transform the nation

into a modern, Westernized

republic. However painful

the process of dragging Turkey

into the modern world, under

Atatürk the country indeed

emerged as a coherent, secular

political entity.

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